But Neil Warnock's Leeds held out for a famous victory which sees them move into the fifth round where they will meet Manchester City and their showing was praised by Villas-Boas who felt it was a tough day for his Tottenham team.

"It was difficult," said Villas-Boas. "At 2-0 Leeds got further inspiration and we wanted to get back quickly.

"We had a good 15 minutes before the goal when we had some good chances, and I think it was important to score early.

"It was difficult as we were always chasing the game and this is a difficult place to play, and we couldn't play our football as well as we could have.

"We wanted to go through in the competition, but we were knocked out by a Leeds team who were extremely competitive today, and you have to give credit to them."